They darted away in search of the fire. The glare of the lightning
showed them their way, and presently they came into the glare of the
flames. The bolt had descended through the harness room.
"Quick! Cattle first!" shouted Old Tilly, clearly. "We must save the
cattle, anyway!"
"You go to them, you two--I'm going to the pump," called back Kent,
decisively. He remembered there was a pump just outside the barn, and
he was sure he had seen two or three pails standing about near it--yes,
there they were! He caught them up with a sweep as he leaped by. It was
the work of a moment to fill two pails and a moment more to dash them
down by the floor in one corner where the scattered hay was burning.
Again and again he made flying leaps to the pump and back.
Meanwhile the other two boys were releasing the frantic cattle. It was
no simple thing to do--the poor creatures were so terrified. There were
two steers and a gentle-faced heifer. The boys had made acquaintance
with them the night before, and the poor things greeted them now with
piteous lows of appeal.
"So, boss--so boss--so-o!" soothed Jot at the heifer's head. His
trembling fingers caressed the smooth, fawn-colored nose, as, with the
other hand, he untied her. She crouched back at first and refused to
pass that terrible flaming something on the way to safety outside. But
Jot pulled her along, talking to her all the way.
In less time than it takes to tell of it, the cattle were out of danger.
"Now the hens--hurry, hurry, Jot! I'm going to help Kent. It mustn't
get to the hay upstairs!"
Thanks to Kent's steady, tireless work, there was little danger of that
now. Already the flames were greatly subdued, and only sputtered
aimlessly under the regular showers of water that fell upon them. The
two boys toiled over them patiently till just a blackened corner told
that they had been there in the trig little barn.
It had been a short, sharp battle. A moment's indecision, a very little
less determined effort and presence of mind, and nothing but a miracle
could have saved the barn. And then the house! It stood so near--what
could have saved it?
It was an hour or more before Old Tilly would allow the live stock
brought back into the barn. They hovered anxiously over the blackened
embers, for fear they might spring into life again. But at last there
seemed no danger, and presently the building settled back to quiet
again, and the tired rescuers tried to snatch a little sleep in the hay.
Jot woke the others in the first dim daylight.
"Fire! Fire!" he screamed.
"Where? Where is it?" cried Kent, springing to his feet.
"Put--it--o-ut," mumbled Old Tilly.
It was only a nightmare, but the boys could not doze again after it.
It was just as the sun was rising clear and beautiful that the boys came
out from the barn, and as they caught sight of each other's blackened
faces in the dazzling light, they each gave way to a roar of laughter.
"Well, we all seem to be in the same boat," said Kent, making for the
pump and filling the pails one after the other. "Here's a pail apiece;
that ought to do it for us." Then he went to one of the wheel baskets
and brought back a crash towel and a generous piece of soap. "Now lay
to on yourselves, boys, and then we will see what we can scare up for
breakfast. I suppose there's no getting into the house, so we'll have
to depend on ourselves." But here Kent noticed how particularly quiet
Old Tilly was.
"What's up, lad?" he said, as he plunged his face down into one of the
dripping pails, and then after scrubbing and sputtering for a while he
reached out blindly for a, towel, which one of the others tossed into
his hands. When his eyes were free, he drew a long breath, saying,
"Water fixes a fellow all right." But as he did this he noticed
something that made him exclaim sharply. It was the sight of Old Tilly
washing himself with one hand, while around the wrist of the other a
grimy handkerchief was bound. "Why didn't you say you were hurt?" he
said, coming over to Old Tilly's side. "What is it, anyway?"
"Oh, it's nothing," said Old Tilly, with an impatient nod of his head.
"Maybe it's where the lightning ran down," he said, with a laugh.
"Lightning!--not much! Come, out with it. What is it?"
"Oh, it's just a tear on an old nail. One of those steers got a little
ugly, and I jumped back too suddenly. It's nothing."
"We'll have to take your word for it," said Kent. But he very soberly
turned to the lunch baskets. It was just as they had packed up
everything neatly and were mounting their wheels to ride away, that a
wagon came rumbling down the grassy road and turned in to the farmyard.
A young man with a limp felt hat was on the seat with a woman wearing a
brown straw hat, while a tiny girl in a pink sunbonnet was nestled down
between them.
"Halloo!" said the man, as he saw the boys. "Just leavin'?"
"Yes, sir," said Old Tilly, respectfully. "We took the liberty of
sleeping in your barn last night. You see the storm kept us there all
night."
"Well, the storm kept us, too," said the young farmer, reaching for the
little child and setting her down by the pump, and then helping the
woman to alight.
The young woman gave a relieved look around, first at the barn and then
at the house, and said delightedly:
"Oh, Jim, how good it does seem to see everything safe! I can't believe
my eyes hardly." And she added, turning to the boys with a slightly
embarrassed laugh, "I never was very good to stay away from home nights,
and we didn't mean to stay last night, but the rain kept us. It just
seemed to me that with every clap of thunder we'd find everything burned
to ashes, and the whole place gone."
Tears came into her eyes, as she turned and gave her hand to the little
child. "Well, I'm going in to get breakfast," she said, a glad,
tremulous light showing across her face. "You better bring these boys in
to breakfast, Jim. If they've just slept in the barn they must be
hungry." Then turning back again with a heartier laugh, "I feel that
glad to see everything, even to the chickens, just as we left them, that
I wouldn't object to asking the President of the United States to
breakfast. You ain't from around here, are you?" she asked, looking at
the boys. "I thought not. And you're hungry, I'll wager," she said, as
she bustled away with the little girl tugging at her skirts, not waiting
for the boys to disaffirm, as they most assuredly would have done had a
chance been given them, for they were not in the least hungry. But
then, what was a cold luncheon taken from a bicycle basket compared with
a warm breakfast that might include ham and eggs?
"She's awfully nervous, Nancy is," said the young farmer, a trifle
apologetically; "she would have it at brother Ed's that she was being
burned out of house and home. We oughtn't to have stayed, but brother
Ed urged us to go home with him. She's always that way when she's away.
We've ridden nineteen miles since daybreak, and she believed every mile
that we were going to see a burned-down house at the end."
"Well," said Old Tilly in a quiet way, so as not to alarm the young
farmer, "I guess she was about right this time. If we hadn't happened
here--" Then he slipped back into the barn, and the young farmer
followed after, and Old Tilly pointed to the blackened corner, while the
other two drew near interestedly.
"You see how it struck," Old Tilly said quietly, "but we put it out
after a while. It is well we happened to be right here."
The young farmer was gazing at the burned place, with his jaw dropped
and a look of terror coming into his blue eyes.
"It did strike! I should say it did!" he cried excitedly. "What will
Nancy say?"
[Illustration: "I should say it did strike!" he cried, excitedly.]
Then as a realization came to him that it was owing to the boys that
they had a roof over their heads, he turned first to one lad and then to
the other, and shook their hands heartily. There were tears in his
eyes, but he did not seem conscious of them. "I don't know what Nancy
'll say," he reiterated, as he shook one hand after the other up and
down like a pump handle. "We'll have to be everlastingly obliged to you
for the rest of our days," he said, trying to laugh a little. But his
voice choked, and he turned away to hide his emotion. Then he dropped
down upon a corn-cutter and insisted on hearing the story from beginning
to end, although Old Tilly declared time and again, with the other two
joining in, that "It was nothing."
"You call it nothing? Well, you wait until you've worked half a
lifetime, as Nancy and me have done, to get a place, and then see what
you think about it. I guess Nancy 'll believe it's something."
Then he stopped as a clear call, "Breakfast! Breakfast!" came ringing
out to them from the open door beyond the pump. "Perhaps we'd better not
say anything about it until after breakfast. She's had a powerful
uneasy night, and it's been a good bit of a ride over, too."
To this the boys assented, and the four walked across the yard to the
kitchen door, where the little girl was shyly waiting for them.
"Ain't you the young chap that beat in the bicycle slow race?" asked
Nancy, when she caught a sight of Tilly's face as he removed his hat.
The other two boys laughed, and the farmer, looking squarely at his
visitor, said:
"Well, I thought I'd seen you somewhere."
And then they settled down to breakfast in the happiest frame of mind,
evidently, that could be imagined. But all the time Old Tilly kept one
hand down at his side, a little out of sight, and the boys noticed that
he took upon his plate only such things as he could very easily manage
with one hand. The breakfast, for a hurried one, was very satisfactory
indeed. Jot and Kent ate with full appreciation of it.
But had they watched closely, they would have seen how Old Tilly's face
now flushed and then grew pale, and that occasionally he brought his
lips together as though striving to control himself.
But, all unmindful of what the boy was undergoing, Nancy presided
merrily over the table, and kept prompting Jim to fill up the plates as
they needed it, and pressed this and that upon the boys' attention.
"I don't feel as if I should ever want to go away again," she cried.
"It's so good to be at home. I've been through every room in the house
and taken a view of them all." And then she said laughingly, turning to
the boys, "Not that there are so very many of 'em, but they're all we've
got, you know. After breakfast we're going out to the barn, ain't we,
Polly?" she added.
But now Kent noticed that Jot's face had suddenly sobered; he was
looking at Old Tilly anxiously; he had seen. His hand come up from
beneath the table, and he was sure that the handkerchief was spotted
with red. "I say--Old Tilly--" Jot got to his feet hastily.
But Old Tilly's face was white, and he was swaying from side to side.
Old Tilly was fainting away.